Matchmaking.
Matchmaking is a wedding ceremony, which involves offering to the bride of the heart and the groom's hand, the bride's parents must be present at the ceremony. In this ceremony, the main person is the groom. But it is permissible to send the matchmakers to the parents of the bride instead of themselves. Often, the matchmakers are godmothers or close relatives of the groom himself. Immediately before the ceremony, the parents of the young agree on matchmaking.
For this ceremony the groom wears, as a rule, a suit and brings two flower bouquets. One of them presents the mother of the bride (mother-in-law), and the other - the young bride. A young man tells the bride's parents of his love for her and asks for her hands. If the parents of the bride agree, then the bride's father takes his daughter by his right hand and puts it into the hand of the groom.
Lookouts.
Another obligatory moment of the Russian wedding ceremony are the bridesmaids, where the parents of the groom, the matchmaker and the groom evaluate and consider the merits of the bride. Usually, the sniffs were held after the matchmaking before the handshake. Also, the bridesmanship also implies that the bride's parents examined the presence of the farmstead at the groom, here they paid attention to the availability of bread, cattle, clothes and utensils.
After the ceremony, the parents finally discussed all the nuances of the upcoming wedding: expenses, date and time, dowry and gifts. When rukobitiya necessarily distributed the ranks at the wedding. The final result of the hand-knap was the voluntary handshake of the fathers on both sides.
Years later, the rite of hacking joined the rite of the bride.
Extraction.
Extraction, or a kind of ceremonial crying, was conducted by relatives of the bride. This meant parting with her parents and her friends. The bride was wearing a kind of veil on her head, which was supposed to hide her view, and her relatives accompanied her. If the bride was released, she fell.
Hen-party.
Held a bachelorette party always 2-3 days before the wedding or the next days after the slaughter. On a bridal shower, which was held at the bride's, friends came, sang wedding songs and sewed along with her gifts for the groom and his relatives. During this ceremony, the bride must have cried, howled and gagged, which meant her parting with the girl's life, because ahead of her was an uneasy married life.
Another very important nuance at the girls' party was the Russian folk rite of unraveling the scythe of the bride, which her girlfriends were spending. This implied that her former life was over for her.
Next followed the ceremony of ablution of the young bride in the bath. It was done on the eve of a wedding or early in the morning before the start of the celebration. The trip to the bathhouse was accompanied by hymns and tributes, there were magical rites.
Dowry.
By the wedding, the girl had to collect a rich dowry. And here, too, her friends came to the rescue. The time of collecting the dowry was determined by a week. The dowry consisted of handmade items: a blanket, a featherbed, pillows, as well as painted towels, shirts, belts and scarves.
The first day of the wedding.
The main or first day of the wedding included the arrival of the groom, marching under the crown, the transfer of the dowry, the transfer of the bride to the groom's house, the parental blessing and the wedding ceremony itself.
Druzhko.
Druzhko, or friend, was considered an important person at the wedding, since he was in charge of the wedding ceremony. A friend was appointed either a close friend or a relative of the groom. Usually he was bandaged over his shoulder with a beautifully embroidered towel.
Arrival of the groom.
In some regions on the wedding day he drank friendly to the bride's house and wondered if she was ready to accept the groom. By this point, the bride had to be completely ready, that is, dressed in a wedding attire and sitting in a red corner.
Redemption.
Upon the arrival of the groom himself, such a wedding ceremony was held as a ransom. It was concluded that the groom had to pay for the pass to the bride. This rite has come down to our days. They bought the bride, as a rule, from the parents and her friends.
Wedding.
Before the young people went to church, the bride's father and mother blessed them with bread and an icon. So, before the wedding, the bride wove her braid and she was braided with two braids, and then her hair was well covered with a headdress or an anvil.
Arrival at the groom's house.
After the wedding ceremony, the bride was brought to the groom, where his parents already blessed them. Some people have a folk rite of planting a bride and groom on a fur coat, which acts as their amulet. During the blessing, you must always keep bread and, as a rule, an icon. The bride and the groom should bite off this bread.
Wedding feast.
According to the rules on the first day of the wedding, the parents of the bride should not have sat at the wedding table, there was a ceremony called "call the proud." Mostly this rite was performed by mummers from the side of the bride and groom. A huge crowd, they came to the house of the parents of the bride and called them at the table. After the wedding ceremony, the lamentations of the bride came to an end and the cheerful and joyful parts of the wedding Russian folk rite began. At the end of this, the young people went to the bride's house for gifts, and then went to the groom, where everything was ready for the wedding. During the wedding, they constantly sang songs for the bride and groom, as well as their parents. In the house of the bride's parents celebrated the second day of the wedding. If the feast lasted for three days, then the third day was celebrated again in the home of the groom's parents.
"Stacking" and "drilling."
"Laying" the newlyweds at night produced matchmaker, or the so-called bedding, which prepared a bed for the young. For this young bridegroom was to pay ransom. In the morning they came to wake up young friends, matchmaker or mother-in-law. According to the rules, there was a rite of hanging the sheets with specks of blood, which indicated the honor of the bride.
The second day of the wedding.
On the second day, the main action was to search for the bride, or "search for the fool." The essence of it is in the search for the groom - the "shepherd" - and his relatives of his "fool" - the bride, who was hiding somewhere in the house.